How's your tolerance for uncertainty right now? I'm working to build mine and it is tough. But very required.

A few things I notice as I work at this... My default strategy for uncertainty is to imagine many possible eventualities (with a bias towards the worst cases) and try to plan for them, or imagine what I'd do if they happen.

This approach has served me pretty well in times past, which is probably why I rely on it so instinctively.

But the world is fast outpacing my ability to cope in this way. I have sleepless nights to attest to it. And though things go wrong and the ripples of national and global tumult are hitting home it's rarely quite in the way I predicted and prepared for.

It's exhausting and stressing me (and those around me I'm sure!) and not particularly helping. The good news is, there are other things to try, once I let go of thinking I can plan my way to safety.

What feels more adaptive is to build my capacity to cope and to support that capacity in those around me. Starting with sleep and good food and exercise. Supporting my immune system. Laughing.

Getting our physical 'home base' better prepared and flexible is another way I'm trying to build that coping capacity. I'd like us to be able to better safely house friends and family. I'd like our self-provisioning activities to be easier and better organized.

I've been organizing seeds and tools and closets (long way to go on all of that, but I've started) and I now I'm seeing that as not just an odd compulsion or some side effect of social isolating, but actually a pretty adaptive idea.

Then there's relationships. The most flexible reliable source of resilience we have. I'm trying to be a good friend, a patient partner, a supportive mom. I'm trying to listen and hold space and reach out, even when social isolation makes all of that harder.

Because I don't know when I'll need help, or when someone will need my help I'm trying to live like a helpful person.

I'm sure there's more, but that's a flavor at least of my musings and experiments in build up my ability to live with uncertainty. All a work in progress to be sure. One that looks likely to occupy the rest of my life!